There and Back Again: A Jötun's Tale
by Virodeil
Summary: Loki dies. And then he lives again. In somewhere totally unexpected. With memories intact. – Is this a punishment or a second chance?
1. Death

There and Back Again: A Jötun's Tale  
By Rey

**Loki dies. And then he lives again. In somewhere totally unexpected. With memories intact. – Is this a punishment or a second chance?**

Disclaimer: I know about MCU events and details aside from the first _Avengers_ film mostly _only_ by osmosis. There are maybe even details on that film that I have missed, given my lack of sight, physically. Then again, this is mostly _wildly_ AU….

1\. Death

Death is purple and gigantic. It also exudes a nearly tangible miasma of murderous satisfaction and deadly glee.

Death is familiar.

And it is coming _at me_.

With nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, to avoid it, like I did a few years ago.

My heart pounds loud and fast, from my head to my booted feet, as if making up for serving the life that it will lose soon. Fear tries to cloud my mind, as it takes over my body, but my mind is… blank.

Death is purple and gigantic. It also exudes a nearly tangible miasma of murderous satisfaction and deadly glee. It is the only thing that registers in my mind, over and over again.

But then, I never knew that death could be like this.

Death should be Laufey, or Hulk, or Odin, or even the Skerge, not _Thanos_.

Death should be blue, or green, or golden, or red, not _purple_.

All the things that I have done to avoid _this_ death….

All the lives that have been claimed by _this_ death – pathetic, but innocent, something that I think I had, once, when I was too little to think and understand.

Too little to feel hurt. Too little to feel shunted. Too little to feel belittled. Too little to feel inferior.

Now, why do I see an expanse of blue, when I remember that?

But blue did always feel peaceful, did it not, before Odin told me whom my birth father was?

Birth father. Birthright.

My birthright is to die, Odin said.

And I am about to die, now.

I am about to claim my birthright.

My birthright is to die.

I want my birthright, however bad it is. It is I. It is who I am. If fleeing is no longer an option, then I want my birthright… maybe with all that it entails. Life is overrated, anyway, and life as a prince even more.

Death is strange, nevertheless. It is purple and gigantic. It also exudes a nearly tangible miasma of murderous satisfaction and deadly glee.

It remains the only thing that registers in my mind.

And now, it fills the whole of my sight.

My birthright.

Purple shifts into blue, as immense pain rushes all over me.

A horrendous wrench replaces the pain, as the blue field becomes all that I see and feel.

And then, quiet and peace.

Death is quiet and peaceful, apparently, in truth. How shocking.

My birthright is quiet and peace. Unexpected. A little boring. Immasculating, for an Asgardian. But I have never been an Asgardian in the first place, have I?

In any case, if my birthright is thus, who am I to argue?

Quiet and peace, after so long fighting and struggling and battering against my cage. It is actually… nice.

Sleep-inducing, even. But I must not let myself be lulled into a false sense of security, I reckon. Who knows what will be thrown at me, even now, after I have claimed my birthright….

I just… need to rest… for a little while….


	2. Home

There and Back Again: A Jötun's Tale  
By Rey

2\. Home 

It is… surprising, but nice, that death is apparently familiar, comfortable and… homey. I even have a companion, here, mute and almost unmoving though it is.

But then again, I am too pleased with my current existence – or lack of it – to attempt to do or say or think about anything, myself. The drowsiness that came with the quiet and peace lingers as a cosy haze that thoroughly soaks me, inside and out.

That very drowsiness is also what enables me to be calm, even though I seem to be floating _in_ some kind of liquid, as well as _inhaling_ it as naturally as breathing air. To my sleepy mind, it is novel, amusing, but not at all frightening. Ripples and churns in the liquid are a fun curiosity, and bumping against surfaces – soft but defined surfaces – as I am carried in the current only brings me more joy.

In fact, my first ever action in this curious place and in this curious state is to try to reach out to one of the surfaces, to poke at it, when the liquid stays still for too long.

I end up exploring the surface that I have managed to reach, when I notice that it is more of a… tensile wall, instead of a thing. Slowly but surely, I float along the wall, mapping it out, poking at it every so often.

Curiosity and wonder bubble up in me instead of any shred of claustrophobia or even concern, when I come to the conclusion that I have ended up in a huge, vaguely rounded thing full of liquid. But indeed, I have never come across or known such a room before this, and such a homey place at that!

The same feelings are what propel me, almost literally, to inspect my roommate.

Well, to _try_ to inspect the said roommate, really. I cannot seem to catch it whatever I do and wherever I go! It only comes near when I stop, exhausted – but contentedly so – by the industrious dashes here and there that I have subjected myself to. I cannot act offended – let alone _be_ offended – at it for toying with me, however, for it then bumps against me in a friendly manner. Far gentler but quite similar to what Thor used to do when we were yet little children, which makes me feel unexpectedly homesick.

And, the apparently sensitive thing that it is, the roommate dances about, like it never did, attracting my attention away from time long gone. And then it entices me to move once more, to explore the place in a far more sedate pace.

Strangely enough, it feels like when Thor and I explored the palace in search of hidden treasures, true or not, during that long-ago childhood.

This time, the homesickness does not have any chance to linger, as my roommate insists in its quiet way to _keep_ my attention to the various features of this quiet, peaceful, private, intimate place that I previously found, and some that I did not found before.

Quite unlike Thor, really.

And with that bittersweet acknowledgement in mind, between one inhale and the next, beside one that is Thor and yet not, I fall asleep. There is nothing and nobody that I should guard against, here, after all.

I am home.


	3. Omniscient

There and Back Again: A Jötun's Tale  
By Rey

3\. Omniscient

Consciousness returns to me very, very slowly and leisurely, like rarely happened before.

Then again, before, even when I was a little child, there were things to get to. Lessons and practises to attend during childhood slowly morphed into duties, quests and projects as I grew. But now, _in death_, what am I going to do other than contemplating the past and floating about this strange but cosy place with my unnamed, unknown roommate?

And, just as my thoughts stray idly towards it, the said roommate bumps gently, _playfully_ against me, as if welcoming me into the new day with a warm greeting. Quite unexpected… and uncanny.

If I could frown, I would, especially now that I am somehow less drowsy than before.

Why is it so friendly towards me, when neither of us can gain anything but a lot of awkwardness and a smidge of pleasantness by being so? We are strangers to each other, after all; there is no reason to be this nice to each other.

I cannot deny that the attention is rather flattering and heart-warming, however. To find companionship in this strange place….

Well, I bump back against it. It is just the polite thing to do, after all.

It exudes a fuzzy, rather unfocused sort of warm regard, in response.

Oh, damn. What should I do, now? I certainly _do not_ have any warm regard to generate right now, let alone to spare to just respond to it!

Why am I panicking for such a paltry matter, anyway? And now a very, very, very vast presence is bearing down on us; most likely attracted by my stupid, useless fretting….

I find myself cowering at the bottom of the room, trying to hide from the new presence, before I realise that I have moved.

But… the presence… it is not actually, exactly _new_, is it not? The tensile, almost seamless, almost perfect sphere that surrounds us, it bears a passive ambience of this presence.

It _bore_ a passive ambience, at any rate, before I foolishly attracted its attention.

And now it is _specifically_ bearing down on me.

Lacking anywhere else to flee to, I brace myself.

And flounder, all the same, as warmth and concern suffuse my entire being, flowing fussily all round and in me. Like and yet unlike Mother – no, _Frigga_ – no, _Mother_ – when I was visibly and greatly hurt after one of the escapades Thor led.

Unlike, because Mother did not usually fuss over my smallest hurts, even when I was a little child. And this foolish panic is a small, quite transient thing indeed, even when not compared to other upsets in my life, which would make it seem the most minuscule of all.

Still, if this great power that suffuses this place – which feels clean, unlike Thanos – wishes to coddle me instead of crushing me into nonexistence….

I reach back, just as my roommate does.

And the power _cuddles_ us, exuding delight and curiosity and… just… _wonder_, before it floods us with an outpouring of something fierce and gentle and devotive and possessive and strong and _open_!

For an omniscient-seeming, all-powerful-seeming presence, it feels so… vulnerable.

The concept is simply _unbelievable_. But it _happens_, nonetheless. It _is_ happening.

Is it one of the Norns? Or all three of them combined into one? But I have never heard nor read _anything_ about them that would even hint at this act of… this act of… well, _this act_!

If this is none of them and instead a new higher being….

Well, it has me as the first devotee.


	4. Voices

There and Back Again: A Jötun's Tale  
By Rey

4\. Voices

Moving about with my roommate, sleeping and basking in the yet-named higher power have become my routine for… quite a long time. The routine is beginning to bore me, actually, so I start testing various things, such as if I could swim faster than my roommate through the churns and the stills of the fluid that permeates this place, how fast I can swim, if any smallest niche in the almost-perfect sphere can be a point of egress, and if I can touch myself or my roommate – at long last – and truly feel the action.

I do not keep with the more physical experiments for long, however, because My roommate, annoyingly, keeps trying to imitate me. I wonder if this is what Thor felt when we still lived and played in the nursery….

Well, _regardless_, there is something better to explore, lately, namely the sounds I start hearing, especially when the higher power is turning its full attention and might on us. Different from its soothing, wordless murmurs and songs of comfort, which I began to hear almost right after the said power firstly turned their full attention on me and my roommate. Different as well from the dug-dug and rush-rush noise that constantly permeates this place after that first time, irrespective of if the fluid is currently moving, or if the power's attention is currently on us. It is more like… _people_?

I still myself, well removed from my roommate to avoid distractions, and listen, and… _yes_, I think I can detect _words_ in the new sounds.

Words and _timbres_.

There are _people_ outside of this place, although I do not recognise the language that they speak.

The sounds – no, _voices_ – get clearer and more distinctly separate as time goes by. Unfortunately, other noises – _far from peaceful noices_ – now become the background, and I find myself and my roommate violently tossed and swirled here and there, oftentimes. It is quite nauseating and alarming!

Are we trapped in the midst of a _battle_?!

Well, no, a _war_, come to think of it again, and I am pretty sure of it now. The power that encompasses and saturates us – _protecting us_, I am beginning to think – is increasingly… diminished, both in might and mental acuity; wearied, eroded, sanded raw.

I begin to hunt for a point of egress more dilligently. It is no longer a curiosity and a passtime, now, but a life-and-death necessity.

My roommate joins in the search and experimentation, and, strangely, I am no longer bothered by its intrusion. I feel… accompanied, in fact. It is just unfortunate that we seem to be tied closely together as well as with the slowly diminishing power that shelters us, and the worry from one transfers to the other among us, amplifying itself in each transference, while we regularly get drenched with the fretting of our shelter.

We are often distracted from our hunts by the various other powers which now seek to touch us. Some have ill intent, which make us shrink away automatically, and our own protector fends them off quite viciously indeed. But sometimes, the extended tendrals of power are deliberately guided to us, and, to our displeasure and somewhat of a discomfort, they get to touch us, however briefly. Our shelter calls them "family," somehow, but still!

And then, after a piece of news that seems to hit the power that shelters and protects us very, very hard with shock and grief and anger and betrayal and a smidge of confusion, a flood of power that is alarmingly familiar to me presses close against our shelter, against _us_.


	5. Confusion

There and Back Again: A Jötun's Tale  
By Rey

Shout out: To **loki_tony_peter** on AO3 for nudging me to update this.

5\. Confusion

Odin. It is _Odin_.

_Odin_ is _pressed close_ against the power who shelters me and my companion. _Not_ in a violent way. But how? _Why_? This does not make _any_ sense!

Odin feels… _far younger_, much less sure, let alone firm, and… _totally undone_. His presence is a maelstrom of overwhelming emotions – horror, grief, loss, fury, relief, and… others – _many, many others_ – but _why_?

The words – _gurgling, hiccuppy words_ – that he shares with the shelter are just as incomprehensible as those from other people in other times. But the shelter is clearly proficient in deciphering them, for it echoes the sentiment almost perfectly, including in itnensity.

And, as in other strong emotions and thoughts that the shelter experienced before, this _also_ echoes in us, its hapless residents, in an ever-corresponding loop.

We shriek.

Odin jolts – or maybe our shelter does, or maybe both – and… feels… _horrified_?

The looping maelstrom of emotions gentles down, in any case.

It breaks, soon after.

But then… Odin…. He feels _wondering_, _youthfully_ curious, _towards us_.

And the shelter _obliges him_, by guiding his presence to touch ours – gently, so, so gently, even _gingerly_, just like two youthful presences before that somehow felt like kin to me.

But _**why**_?! Can he not recognise me? Does he not feel scorn towards me? Does he not feel scorn towards _us_ – I and my companion, whose combined might cannot even match a tenth of his?

Then again, if we are all dead, why is he not here with me and my companion? Not that I would like him to be here, but… but….

This new existence… it is so… so… _confusing_.

And now he is… _singing_? To _us_? Why? What for?

I cannot deny that the song, wordless as it is, is pleasant and even comforting, despite some wavering notes, heavily tinged with lingering grief. But _still_; _Odin_, singing?!

My companion pokes at me, then whirls round in a dance. I poke at them back, but do not join in. I am still very much freaked out by this hither-to-unknown side of one whom I called Father throughout most of my life.

My companion is persistent, however. And, before long, they manage to drag me into their dance, swaying and twirling to the song that _Odin_ sings.

The shelter soaks us in their power and presence, in the meantime, and Odin presses even closer, physically as well as mentally.

The shelter cradles _him_, even as he cradles us while still singing.

I cannot help wondering: Did he _ever_ sing and cradle to me when I was a baby or a little child?

I wish….


	6. Chaos

There and Back Again: A Jötun's Tale  
By Rey

Caution alert: traumatic childbirth

6\. Chaos

In hindsight, the interlude with Odin, which surprisingly ran rather long, feels like the calm before the storm, for me and my companion. We can hear _more_, feel _more_ and understand _more_, now, and nearly all that our senses catch are unpleasant in one way or another. Our odd little home is shaken and swirled and jolted harsher and longer than before, although nothing undesirable ever touches it.

Our protector tries to shield us by inducing us to drowsiness, but we fight against it. Because, to me at least, it is better to be tortured along the way than to be ignorant of dangers soon to come, and apparently my roommate agrees with me.

Our protector has increasingly less and less time for us, but, conversely, we have more and more time for it.

Well, actually, not quite _time_ but _intention_ and _attention_, which we use to soothe it whenever it feel heartsick, horrified or exhausted.

And it feels such tiring, damaging, lingering emotions in increasing intensity, now more than ever.

And then, the shelter, the protector, the _home_ is suddenly hit _very, very, very hard_ by something that emanates a _strong_ noisome feel, not to mention a potant curse against healing.

It is a nasty, nasty shock to me and my roommate, although maybe it should not have, given how long we have been violently tossed and flipped and swirled within our watery home. My roommate even freezes in place, neither doing nor "saying" anything, while they used to be rather chattery with their observations and bouts of curiosity.

But then again, I, too, freeze in place, while I was admitedly just as chattery and curious in their company.

I have no time to ponder this horrible turn in my not-life, however, as, right after the impact and the activation of the curse, the walls of our shelter begins to contract and the water in it begins to drain.

My instincts scream at me. – It is _wrong_! I do not wish to be stranded and squeezed like fish caught under a grinder stone!

I flee downwards, following my roommate to the only other intact way that is _somewhat_ big enough for us if we take turns exiting, abandoning the spot that we instinctively know as the _right_ way, which is no longer available to us.

All the while, our protector's sobs and cries of pain and fear echo in our ruined, crumpling, draining home.

I will never forget how our protector _screams_ when the makeshift egress point, tensile but overly _small_, begins to tear apart while my roommate ever so slowly inches out, pushed by me from behind.

But I will never forget, too, how a huge, trembling something that is coated with our protector's seiðr envelopes my entire front, when I at long last take my turn to escape on the cost of its increased agony. Not to crush me, not to hush me, but to _connect with me_, as if I did not contribute to its further misery.

And then its voice resounds in my mind with so much pain and fear but _also_ so much warmth, _just for me_:

`_Loptr… Laufey-childe._`


	7. Rebirth

There and Back Again: A Jötun's Tale  
By Rey

Chapter warning: wartime reality (It is always _ugly_, and uglier than books and tales ever say….)

7\. Rebirth

Only when I feel myself mostly enclosed by an ungainly surface and born _away_ from both the shelter and my former roommate do I realise – _truly_ realise – who I am – _what_ I am – in this place.

This _horribly familiar_ place.

In a _horribly familiar_ event.

For a long, long time, all that I can see is a field of blue marred with silvery markings, and all that I can hear close to me is the frantic pattering of a heart smaller than the shelter – than _Laufey_ – accompanied by the rapid, harsh breath of an animal that knows _very well_ how trapped it is.

And farther away, the feels and sounds of an _urban battle_ as the Midgardians named it – pained and dying cries of voices deep and deeper, vicious seiðr and arrows singing, bellowed orders and curses, structures crumbling and exploding, animals and civilians screaming, weapons firing and clanging and thumping – hem us in from all sides, _worse_ than a pack of hungry wolves closing in on helpless prey.

More often than not, my holder – my protector, my kidnapper – has to stop running and hunker down somewhere, folding themself round me in a pitiful attempt of protection, in a sad mockery of the shelter I was in in what feels like moments ago. They murmur feverishly after each instance, even as they run faster, sounding more like desperate prayers than anything else.

They sound _young_. They feel _young_.

I have been spirited away by _a child_. One of the two kin-feeling individuals that the shelter – _Laufey_! It was _Laufey_! – introduced to me, in fact.

And they are _alone_. Not even accompanied by the other one as guard.

Pitifully inadequate, in the midst of a _vicious, desperate battle_.

Which happens in the middle of _a town of civilians_.

I heard the tales. I read the books. But I never thought that events could be like… this.

A living, waking nightmare.

I was born in battle.

I have been _reborn_ in battle.

But _what for_? What is the use of me reliving my wretched life? What is the use of me being a weak newborn carried away in a battle?

Did the Norns wish to show me how _not_ abandoned I was after all? Well, they should consider me informed, now, and return me to oblivion!

This existence, it is even _worse_ than the eternity I spent under Thanos' lack of mercy. I would do many, many things to be free of it.

Including howling with all my _in_considerable might, both physically and mentally.


	8. Rescue?

There and Back Again: A Jötun's Tale  
By Rey

8\. Rescue?

My kidnapper squeaks in fear and distress when, answering to my loud but undirected call, various combatants converge on our location. "Loptr!" they whimper whingingly.

And yet they do not let me go to save themself.

Not until I have been stowed on a corner deep in a frantically bustling building, at any rate, and only after they – foolishly, perhaps, if I were truly a newborn – shush me with both sound and a finger on my lips.

And then, not long after, I hear them scream in _utter terror_, before their presence _fade away_ – in unconsciousness? In death? I do not know.

Worse yet, the bustling noises that we waded amidst when coming here have stopped.

I feel so, so alone, and cold, and lonely, and hemmed in.

I scream again.

And afar, unbelievably, someone responds to it – another person, another relative, coming closer _fast_ with _fear-worry-hope-fear-pain-worry-grief-exhaustion-fear_ swirling in their presence, muddying it to the point of near-unrecognisability

The presence gets even more distressed as they draw closer, and soon they burst into the room in which I am held, in a blind panic that fades only when they… or _he_, rather… at last beholds my pitiful form laid on the floor and touches me – one of my flailing arms, to be exact.

It is _Odin_.

Looking so young, and so freshly one-eyed, with the remaining eye red-rimmed and swollen as if having wept copiously not long ago.

And all he says – or _whimpers_ – at first is, "Oh, Ýmir," before he gathers me up into his arms – his _cuddling_ arms – _unhesitatingly_.

But why Ýmir? Why not the Norns? Asgardians do not swear by Ýmir. Ýmir is the patron – no, _matron_ – deity of _the frost giants_! And Odin is an _ás_ – the _King_ of Asgard, in fact!

And why is he looking round frantically now? What is he searching for? The Casket of Ancient Winters? But the Casket is not here – I can feel it. Surely he can feel it as well – better than I can do in this weak, helpless form, even?

And then, "Where…. Oh, child, where is your twin? Where is the other one? There were two of you!"

For some reason, he even holds up one of my arms by the wrist and seems to check something on it, gingerly moving it here and there. And then, after confirming whatever he wished confirmed, he leaps to his feet with renewed vigor and rushes out of the room with me still cradled close to his chest, listening to yet another set of pattering heartbeats and panting breaths.

It is a déjà vu moment that I wish would never occur again to me, especially so soon.

And where is Odin bringing me? To Asgard? Surely not to my… _mother_? But if to Asgard, why so frantic? Why in such a rush?

Why did he lie to me, even about this, that lifetime ago? Why did he say that I was a tool, when now I experience the _evidence_ that he is frantic with worry for _me and my twin_?

But, if he _does_ love me, why would he part me from my family now?


End file.
